Every year in Lent the gospel reading for the second Sunday is always one of the accounts of the Transfiguration of Jesus, depicted here from the church of Belmont Abbey in Herefordshire. This year the account is from the ninth chapter of the gospel of Mark. This event is one
Continue readingI emailed Fr Steve and asked whether I could write a piece for this week’s Newsletter and he enquired what the topic would be. I replied with three words: Lent, Choco-late and Slavery and Fr Steve then replied ‘I have given one of them up – guess which one!’ Two
Continue readingThe words Repent and believe in the Gospel or Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return will be familiar to you. You may consider these refrains used in the liturgy of Ash Wednesday somewhat dispiriting, particularly in the current climate when many of us are almost
Continue readingEach month the pope chooses a special prayer intention to guide all of us in our intercessory prayer. This month his intention is Women who are victims of violence. The Holy Father has produced a special YouTube message for this which you can view here: There is also a special
Continue readingLast week it was announced that Britain had become the first European country to officially reach the ‘sombre milestone’, as one newspaper put it, of more than 100,000 deaths. As tragic and sobering as these grim facts are, and not wishing to minimise or trivialise in any way the devastating
Continue readingAS YOU MAY REMEMBER in this country for over a year now we have been keeping a special Year of the Word of God, entitled The God who Speaks, designed to help Catholics in England and Wales deepen our knowledge of the Bible. The Bishops Conference has developed special resources
Continue readingTHIS SUNDAY, the feast of the Baptism of the Lord, marks the end of the Christmas season in our calendar, although like many other churches we keep the crib in place, this year in front of the altar, until the feast of Candlemas at the beginning of next month. This
Continue readingAs this newsletter covers the next fortnight, I will take the opportunity on behalf of the clergy and staff here at St Edmund’s, to wish you a very holy, joyful and peaceful Christmas and I extend this wish for the New Year. Enough has been said of the fear and
Continue readingONE OF THE VERY GOOD THINGS we can say about the year 2020 now drawing to an end, and there aren’t perhaps many such things, is that God has given the Church and the world a tremendous pope for this trying time. From the very beginning of the pandemic Pope
Continue readingFIFTY-FIVE YEARS AGO, one of the final documents of the Second Vatican Council contained these words: ‘Humanity judges rightly that by his intellect he surpasses the material universe, for we share in the light of the divine mind. By relentlessly employing his talents through the ages we have indeed made
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